Mignosi's phone app helps organize coupons and items for shoppers

Sunday

Mar 10, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Call it smart food shopping.

WAYNE WITKOWSKI

Call it smart food shopping.

The latest "green" initiative by local supermarkets is a nearly paperless shopping experience.

Mignosi's Super Foodtown on Jan. 16 introduced an iPhone and Android smartphone app that allows shoppers to browse through sale items, grab coupons that they can store in a folder and make up their own shopping list.

If Foodtown customers select digital manufacturer's coupons and Smart Source company coupons, those coupons can be individually stored in their Club Card and processed while the item is being rung up at the register if it's bought before the expiration date.

And if shoppers select a dinner item that needs ingredients, those ingredients will be transmitted onto the shopping list for them to consider buying. They can keep a checklist of what they've already picked up.

Once shoppers get their receipt, registers there now list items on both sides of the receipt, cutting down on the use of paper there as well.

"I like it. And actually some people feel funny about handing over coupons to the cashier; I don't know why," said Mignosi's Super Foodtown Store Manager Mike Mignosi. "And it all still shows up in the receipt."

Shoppers who prefer hard copy still can print the shopping list from their personal computer at home.

Weis recently followed the trend for its Preferred Shopper Club members stashing selected items in the club card that can be used at the register upon purchase.

"With Weis eCoupons, our customers are getting paperless coupons when and where they want them," said Brian Holt, Weis Markets' Vice President of Marketing in an announcement made on Tuesday. "In recent years, we've worked steadily to increase the value of our Weis Preferred Shoppers Club Card through gas rewards. Our eCoupon program is the logical next step for a program that has helped us consistently add value to the Weis Markets' shopping experience."

But when Mike Mignosi got the word on Jan. 3 from Allegiance Corp., which oversees Foodtown and other supermarket chains, that it wanted his store to join the trend it was welcome news to him. Mignosi studied computer science at Muhlenberg and was back in his element of showing employees and installing the program. He said customers are still getting familiar with it so he hasn't gotten feedback yet from regular users to gauge a response.

"There's been a a problem of Internet fraud on coupons but these are manufacturer's coupons that are electronically transferred (to the store's club card)," Mignosi said.

The store has made ongoing changes. Three years ago, it opened a beer bistro with regional microbrews and major labels. A year later, the store's fašade was redone and the lot was repaved.

And there are interior changes in the plans for this year. Mignosi said that new seafood cases will replace the ones that remain in good condition from when they were installed in 1998 and will replace the bakery section cases as well, the latter with a more woodcrafted artisan look. He said customers with smaller families appreciate the bread rolls sold individually rather than in packs of four or six.

"We're always continuing to change to the new," Mignosi said. "You have to ramp up with the times."

Mignosi said business remains steady despite the struggling economy of recent years and has led to shopping habits. Customers are buying more sale items, he said, and buying more, less expensive private label purchases of Foodtown items such as paper towels, English muffins and breakfast cereal.

"We've seen more manufacturers get out of the private label markets because there's less of a profit margin," said Mignosi, who said about 5 percent of the store's overall stock is private Foodtown labels.

Mignosi said the prime cuts of meat and fresh seafood that are selected from the Philadelphia Seafood Market and brought directly to his store remain popular with shoppers. "We have the best tasting salmon," he said with a broad smile.

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